506 BREAD 



may bo considered when taken separately, it is always large when considered 

 as portion of an article of food like bread, consumed day after day, and at each 

 meal, without interruption. To allow articles of food to bo tampered with, 

 under any circumstances, is a dangerous practice, oven if it were proved that 

 it can bo done without risk, which, however, is not the case ; and Liobig himself 

 has said that chemists should never propose the use of chemical products for culinary 

 preparations. 



The quantity of ashes left after the incineration of genuine bread, varies from 1'5 

 at least to at most 3 per cent. ; and if the latter quantity of ashes bo exceeded, the 

 excess may safely bo pronounced to be duo to an artificial introduction of some saline 

 or earthy matter. 



As to the addition to broad of potatoes, beans, rice, turnips, maize, or Indian corn, 

 which has occasionally been practised to a considerable extent, especially in years of 

 scarcity, it is evident that they are actually permitted under the Act of Parliament, 

 Will. IV. cap. 27. sect. 11. 



In his ' New Letters on Chemistry,' Liobig makes tho following remarks on the 

 subject: 



' Tho proposals which have hitherto boon made to use substitutes for flour, and 

 thus diminish the price of bread in times of scarcity, prove how much tho rational 

 principles of hygiene are disregarded, and how unknown tho laws of nutrition aro 

 still. It is with food as with fuel. If we compare tho price of tho various kinds 

 of coals, of wood, of turf, wo shall find that the number of pence paid for a certain 

 volume or weight of these materials is about proportionate to tho number of 



degrees of heat which they evolve in burning The mean price of food 



in a large country is ordinarily tho criterion of its nutritive value 



Considered as a nutritive agent, rye is quite 'as dear as wheat ; such is tho case 

 also with rice and potatoes ; in fact, no other flour can replace wheat in this 

 respect. In times of scarcity, however, these ratios undergo modification, and 

 potatoes and rice acquire then a higher value, because, in addition to their natural 

 value as respiratory food, another value is superadded, which in times of abundance 

 is not taken into account. 



' The addition to wheat flour of potato starch, of dextrine, of the pulp of turnips, 

 gives a mixture, tho nutritive value of which is equal to that of potatoes, or perhaps 

 loss ; and it is evident that one cannot consider as an improvement this transforma- 

 tion of wheat flour into a food having only the same value as rice or potatoes.' 



The detection of potato starch, of beans, peas, Indian corn, rice, and other feculse, 

 which is so easily effected by means of the microscope in flour, is exceedingly dif- 

 ficult, if not impossible, in bread. Bread which has been made with flour mixed with 

 Indian corn is harsher to the touch, and has frequently a slight yellowish colour, and 

 when moistened with solution of potash of ordinary strength, a yellow or greenish- 

 yellow tinge is developed. The late Dr. A. N. See TOAST, LEAVEN. 

 We exported in 1871 the following quantities of BBEAD and BISCUITS : 



c\vts. 



To Eussia 2,157 



Sweden 2,249 



Norway 3,778 



Germany . . . 1,967 



Holland . . . . . . % . . 10,107 



Belgium . . 9,039 



France 194,646 



Portugal, Azores, and Madeira 2,353 



Italy 7,433 



United States, Atlantic 10,027 



Pacific 104 



Foreign West Indies 2,424 



Peru 1,515 



Brazil 3,965 



Argentine Confederation ...... 2,219 



Channel Islands 4,586 



British India : , 



Bombay and Scinde . . . . 1,611 



Bengal 1,499 



Ceylon 2,045 



British West India Islands and British Guiana . . 2,296 

 Other countries . ,. 26,027 



291,047 



